Sovereignty

Sovereignty is a political concept that refers to dominant power or supreme authority. In a monarchy, supreme power resides in the "sovereign", or king. In modern democracies, sovereign power rests with the people and is exercised through representative bodies such as Congress or Parliament. The Sovereign is the one who exercises power without limitation. Sovereignty is essentially the power to make laws, even as Blackstone defined it. The term also carries implications of autonomy; to have sovereign power is to be beyond the power of others to interfere.

Beyond lawmaking power, two other (often contentious) aspects of sovereignty are eminent domain (the right of the sovereign to take private property for public use) and sovereign immunity(which offers the sovereign protection from lawsuits).